The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System's associate director of operations, Clint Rhoden, will replace departing executive director George Hopkins, the system's trustees decided Wednesday.
The retirement system is state government's largest with more than $17 billion in investments and more than 100,000 working and retired members.
After two days of interviewing six candidates for the job, the trustees voted to promote Rhoden to the executive director's job at a salary of $165,000 a year. It was a voice vote with no dissents.
Rhoden's salary as associate director of operations is $100,320 a year, according to the Arkansas Transparency website. Hopkins, who announced Oct. 1 that he plans to retire by the end of this year, is paid $180,108 a year.
The trustees selected Rhoden, 49, of Bryant, over two former state lawmakers -- state government budget administrator Duncan Baird and Central Arkansas Water general counsel David Johnson. Other candidates were system Deputy Director Rhett Hatcher, a former legislative affairs director for Gov. Asa Hutchinson; system General Counsel Laura Gilson; and Timothy Viezer, chief investment officer for the Employees Retirement System of the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans.
The board interviewed the six candidates Tuesday and Wednesday after 26 people applied for the job.
Baird is a former Republican state representative from Lowell. Johnson is a former Democratic state representative and senator from Little Rock.
The system has had a history of hiring former lawmakers to head the agency. Hopkins, who has been the system's director since December 2008, is an attorney and former Democratic state senator from Malvern. David Malone, a former state senator from Fayetteville, headed the agency from 2003-07.
Board Chairman Jeff Stubblefield of Charleston said in an interview that the trustees hired Rhoden because "Mr. Rhoden brought all the attributes that we had set out at the very beginning of this process."
Rhoden has "knowledge of the system, knowledge inside, passion for the position, depth of understanding of benefits, depth of the legislative process," Stubblefield said.
Asked why the board didn't hire either Baird or Johnson given its history of hiring former lawmakers, Stubblefield said, "Both of them were outstanding candidates and this board toiled with this decision for a long time.
"But in the end, we felt that Mr. Rhoden was the best choice," Stubblefield said.
"I think [lawmakers] will understand the criteria that we worked with and the methodology. This was not an easy choice, not a short choice. It wasn't one off the cuff. It was very diligent and the members of the [board] would attest to the diligence," said Stubblefield.
Trustee Johnny Key, who is the state's education commissioner, said in an interview that Rhoden "came to the top through the interview process as somebody that not only can handle all the aspects of leading the group here, but also working with the Legislature and all the agencies like ours.
"I was just really impressed with him," he said.
Asked if the trustees will get any blowback from Republican lawmakers over not picking Baird, Key said, "I don't think so.
"We had some candidates with political ties on both sides, and I think highly of everybody that was on that list, but through the process and the conversation of what we need [Rhoden] was the guy," said Key, who is a former Republican state senator and representative from Mountain Home.
Sen. Bart Hester, a co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Retirement and Social Security Programs, said the new director must be "amazing in all categories to be better than those that I know."
Rhoden is "virtually an unknown to us in the Legislature," said Hester. The Cave Springs lawmaker said last week that Baird has the "complete trust" of lawmakers, and "it will be hard to match Duncan's qualifications."
Rep. Doug House, the committee's other co-chairman, said he doesn't know Rhoden or anything about him.
"If that's who they chose, it's their responsibility. I don't have much comment on it," he said. "If I had an issue with one of the systems, I will be talking to the trustees, not the director. I think that's the way it should be."
Johnson said, "I am happy for Clint. He will make a great executive director."
Baird could not be reached for comment by telephone or email late Wednesday afternoon.
Asked if he had any comment about Rhoden's hiring, Hatcher replied in an email, "No sir."
"I congratulate Clint Rhoden on his selection as Director of ATRS," Hutchinson said in a written statement. "The ATRS board is independent, and I know they have full confidence in Mr. Rhoden and his capacity to lead the multi-billion dollar retirement system, which is so important to our teachers and our state."
The 15-member board of trustees includes 11 trustees who are elected by working and retired members of the system; Republican state Treasurer Dennis Milligan; Republican state Auditor Andrea Lea; state Banking Commissioner Candace Franks; and Key. Hutchinson appointed Franks and Key to their Cabinet-level posts.
Rhoden has been associate director of operations since April 2014, and president and consultant of Rhoden Technologies since 1997, according to his resume.
His resume states that Rhoden Technologies was a participant in a computer modernization project for the Teacher Retirement System from 2001-14 that reduced data-processing costs from about $1.5 million a year to less than $500,000 a year.
He was a systems analyst/database administrator for Global Computer Associates to an IBM project in Little Rock from 1995-2001, and a systems programmer and operations analyst at Dillard's in Little Rock from 1991-95, his resume states. He received a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Central Arkansas in 1993 and his law degree from the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1993.
Stubblefield said the board will work with Hopkins to coordinate Rhoden's start date.
"Mr. Hopkins will retire earlier than his initial Dec. 31 date," he said.
Asked about his plans, Rhoden said, "I am going to work with George Hopkins right up until the day of his retirement."
"I am shocked as anybody, so it is going to be hard to come up with an exact plan," he said. "But I would like to work with George for a transition period of time. That's what I would expect. I don't know exactly what his last day will be now. ... But basically, my plan up to that point is to work with George on a daily basis to try to get a plan done for George, to learn everything that he knows about the system that I really have not been privy to at his point. That's the way it works. The executive director knows things that everybody else doesn't know."
Rhoden said he told the trustees that "we are really lucky to have a really great staff, that they know how to run this system and I wouldn't have signed up for this job if they didn't have a great staff all over the place.
"I really want to push to more of a mobile platform," he said. "It's a way to interact with the members in a little bit more interactive way. ... I think I can have great support for that now."
A Section on 11/01/2018